Leora Cruddas CBE, Chief Executive Officer of CST, said: "CST supports the ambitions of the White Paper and the proposal for all schools to be in a strong trust. Since our inception, we have made the case for the power of a group of schools working together in deep and purposeful collaboration in a single governance structure."
An excellent teacher for every child
"The evidence is clear that the quality of teaching is the single most important in-school factor in improving outcomes for pupils. We strongly support the focus on evidence-informed professional development. There is no improvement for pupils without improvement in teaching, and no improvement in teaching without the best professional development for teachers. We believe school trusts have the capacity and can create the culture and conditions where professional development can be most effective.”
Oak National Academy
"We are pleased that Oak National Academy will be in public ownership but retain its independence. We look forward to working with Oak National Academy as it develops its ambition to exemplify the curriculum, ensuring both quality but also plurality of curricula approaches, where the evidence supports this and so that the curriculum remains embedded in subject disciplines.”
Length of the school day
"We believe that the evidence supports high quality teaching time and a rich programme of extra-curricular activities that support the wider purposes of education. But we are concerned about the proposal to set a blanket minimum expectation for the length of the school day. We will work with the government to ensure that this does not result in unintended consequences which may not further high-quality education.”
Targeted support
"We support the ambition for every child to be on track in terms of reading, writing and maths. Schools and trusts already have strategies to assess and identify those pupils who may have fallen behind during the pandemic or for other reasons. It is right that parents are offered assurance that schools will provide the right evidence-informed support for their child at the earliest possible opportunity. We are very pleased to see the commitment to re-endow the Education Endowment Foundation.”
A stronger and fairer school system
"We support the proposal for all schools to be in a strong trust. We particularly welcome the recognition that strong trusts will be solely accountable for school improvement."
"We believe teachers and leaders working together in deep and purposeful collaboration in a trust structure can form communities of practice – we have made the case for this in our work on Communities of Improvement.”
Local authority-controlled trusts
"We welcome the clarity on the role of local authorities. Regarding the proposal for local authorities to be able to establish trusts where too few strong trusts exist, we believe it is important to ensure that these trusts will be regulated in the same way as any other trusts, and that safeguards are in place to effectively manage any potential for conflicts of interest, including limits on local authority involvement on the trust board.”
Proposal for a school to be able to request to leave a trust
"We are deeply concerned about the proposal for a school to be able to make a request to the regulator to leave a trust. This proposal fails to understand that the trust is the legal entity – it is not an ‘authority’ somehow separate from its schools. We have shared our concerns about this proposal and will continue to make the case that this is a retrograde step.”
Regulatory review
"We look forward to working with government on the proposed regulatory review. It is essential that, through this review, we create a form of regulation which does not compromise the legal independence of trusts or stray into determining process or operational procedure. The work on the regulatory review must include the role that inspection might have as a regulatory tool.”
Definition of a strong trust
"We broadly support the definition of a strong trust set out in the White Paper. However, we would argue that high quality, inclusive education and school improvement should not be considered as separate elements of the definition. A trust delivers high quality, inclusive education through its school improvement practices."
"We also believe that the definition of a strong trust should include public benefit and civic duty – proposed in CST’s discussion paper, What is a Strong Trust? We note that the White Paper refers to a wider civic responsibility for trusts, which is most welcome. CST has long made the case the school trust is a new form of civic structure that exists to advance education for public benefit.”
